“And what did he wish to tell me?” gasped Clymer, down whose colorless face perspiration trickled.
“Aye, what?” broke in Kent significantly.
“Jimmie may not have gotten the information he wished at your house, Colonel McIntyre, but his presence there on Monday night showed the forger he was in danger, and like the human snake he is, he poisoned without warning. Don't move—Sylvester!”
With a backward spring Kent caught his clerk as he sped for the door.
“Don't make any mistake in putting on the handcuffs this time, Ferguson,” he shouted. “A forger and a contortionist make a bad customer to reckon with.”
CHAPTER XXI. THE RIDDLE ANSWERED
There was absolute stillness in the room; then a babble of exclamations broke out as Sylvester, his expression of dumb surprise giving place to one of fury, struggled to free himself from the detective's firm grip.
“You cannot escape, Sylvester,” declared Kent, observing his efforts. “Your carelessness in using your peculiar gift of penmanship in copying Barbara McIntyre's signature in this memorandum of her visit here”—Kent held up a sheet torn from his pad, “gave me the first clew. These, the second,” he showed several pieces of blotting paper freshly used. “See, in the mirror here is reflected the impression from your clever imitations of the handwritings of Barbara, Colonel McIntyre, and Mrs. Brewster.”
They crowded about Kent, all but Ferguson and his prisoner, who had subsided in his chair with what the detective concluded was dangerous quietude.